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Exposure to strategy concepts alters the way one looks at businesses. Strategic thinking involves a comprehensive analysis of a business in relation to its industry, its competitors and the business environment in both the short and the long term.

Ultimately, strategy is a company's plan to achieve its goals.

Corporate managements often do not know clearly what they want or how they'll get there. For example, if the question posed is which way do I go from here and the answer is it depends on where you want to go, then if the resulting answer is I don*t really care then the ultimate conversation finisher could be then it does not matter which way you go.

Corporations need carefully thought-out plans strategic plans or inevitably they will become victims of the market-place as opposed to the victors who shape it.

Strategic plans cannot be formed in a vacuum; they must fit organisations just as marketing plans must be suited to products.

Strategic planning is essentially characterised by two separate stages -- formation and implementation.

This is the optimum point at which to introduce the seven S model:

Structure
Systems
Skills
Staff
Strategy
Statement of Mission

An organisation's ability to change can be measured and each of the "S" factors should be able to complement each of the others in a perfect organisation.

This is essentially no different from a marketing plan, which should be internally consistent and mutually supportive.

The seven "S" models is a helpful tool to organise one's thoughts in order to define and effectively attack complicated problems.

Structure

A corporation's structure affects its strategic planning and its ability to change.
A company's structure may have a customer or a geographic focus. For example. if a company decides to alter its strategy to become more responsive to its customers it may need to adopt a customer structure, which will channel all the skills of a company to meet customer's specific needs.

Systems

The procedures, both formal and informal, by which a company operates, are known as the systems of a company.
When a company confronts a major challenge in the market place, management must have detailed data about its operations, customers, and competition to determine the gravity of the situation. Market research and sales tracking systems give information about the customers while competitive intelligence systems give an insight into what other companies are up to.

Skills

The skills imparted by the employees into the business have to be judged by the employer at the point of the interview so that the necessary improvements can be made to the business.

Staff

With no people, there's no company .The human resources system, which includes appraisals, training, wages, and intangibles such as employee motivation, morale and attitude. With a motivated workforce, companies are able to adapt and compete. This is an essential factor however, because without employee co-operation a company will not have the ability to succeed.

Strategy

This refers to the actions that a company plans in response to or in anticipation of changes in its external environment, its customers and its competitors.

Style

Culture or style is the aggregate of behaviours, thoughts, beliefs and symbols that are conveyed to people throughout an organisation over time.

Mission Statements

These are often mentioned when companies speak about their goals. A mission statement should be a short and concise statement of goals and priorities and not long, bland and tedious documents.

In summary, properly followed the seven "S" formulae could mean the difference between a business being successful or not. Use this as a checklist from time to time to keep the business on a true path.